


Mykonos

by Moorishflower



Series: A Cold Academic Hell [34]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-27
Updated: 2011-07-27
Packaged: 2017-10-21 20:19:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/229361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moorishflower/pseuds/Moorishflower
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You'll go / Wherever you go today / You'll go today / When I'm walking brother don't you forget / It ain't often that you'll ever find a friend</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mykonos

Dean doesn’t come back that night.

He doesn’t come back that night, even though Sam sits in the living room by the door, waiting for him. Gabriel stays with him for a while, longer, if Sam’s honest, than he’d thought Gabriel would stay. It’s not until around ten that night that Gabriel murmurs, “I have to go,” and kisses Sam goodnight. Sam, who has yet to eat, sleep, or shower, doesn’t answer. He makes a soft noise, something like a whimper, and Gabriel kisses him again, harder this time.

“Hey,” he says. “Don’t worry, he’ll come around. You can’t stay angry at family forever.”

“You don’t know Dean. He’s stubborn.”

“So are you.” Gabriel touches Sam’s temple, brushing his hair back behind his ear. “Go eat, take a shower. Get some sleep. He’ll be back by tomorrow, I promise.”

“You can’t promise that.”

“I can and I will. If I have to hunt him down and drag him back here myself, I will.”

Sam manages a faint smile. “Thanks, Gabriel.”

Gabriel runs his fingers back through Sam’s hair, humming softly. “I really have to go. I have paperwork to do.”

“I know.”

“Will you be okay on your own? I can stay.”

“You just said you had to go.”

“Yeah, but you know me. When has blowing off work ever been a problem?”

Huffing slightly, Sam reaches up and twines his arms around Gabriel’s shoulders, pulling him down into something like a hug, a small, tight space between them, their mouths almost touching.

“Gabriel,” Sam whispers. “Go home.”

“Fine.” Gabriel closes the few centimeters between their mouths, kissing Sam once, twice, and then leaning back again. Sam lets his arms fall to his sides, digging his fingers around the edges of the couch cushions. “But I’ll call you. Once I get home.”

“Okay.”

“And first thing tomorrow morning.”

“Gabriel…”

“If you don’t pick up…”

“Gabriel!”

Gabriel stops. He tilts his head, and then grins at Sam. “I get it,” he says. He grabs his coat from by the door, sliding it over his shoulders. He doesn’t stop grinning.

“Remember,” he says. “Dean will be back tomorrow, I guarantee it.”

Sam smiles, and manages to keep smiling until Gabriel actually steps outside and lets the door fall shut behind him. Then his smile falls, diminishing little by little until it’s almost as though it were never there at all. Sam sits very still, for such a long time that his legs, folded up beneath him, lose feeling. He has to shift himself, moving from sitting to reclining on the couch, head pressed against the armrest so that he can watch the door.

Gabriel doesn’t come back, and neither does Dean.

Eventually, when it gets so late that Sam can no longer justify his desire to stay up with anything other than dumb hope, he unfolds himself from the couch and shuffles to the bathroom. He runs the water as hot as he can stand it, almost forgets to take his shirt off before stepping into the tub, and gives himself only a cursory scrub down. He washes his hair as quickly as he can, not bothering with conditioner, and then flees the bathroom with the towel around his waist, still damp. He leaves his clothes in a crumpled heap behind him.

He doesn’t go to his bedroom. Instead, he goes to the kitchen, and pulls out the bottle of scotch that he’d brought back from the club. Slightly more than half full, but just in case he roots around in the cupboards underneath the stove until he finds a bottle of rum that’s probably been sitting there since time began. He blows the dust from the bottle, checks to see that no one has opened it, and then carries it and the scotch to his room, the towel falling halfway down his hips as he walks.

He doesn’t get to sleep until three that morning.

If there’s one thing he’s learned from his father and brother, it’s how to drink until his problems go away.

~

Sam is awoken by the sound of his cell phone ringing.

He peels open one gritty, painful eye and glares at the nightstand, but the phone doesn’t shut up. Sam reaches out, fumbling to grab the phone, which seems incredibly tiny when compared to the size of his palm. His head feels like a cracked egg and his mouth tastes like a donkey’s ass, but he somehow still manages to flip the phone open and mumble something (he’s not entirely he’s creating actual words with his mouth, but at least they’re sounds) into the speaker.

“Sam?”

Sam winces, his stomach roiling. He scrambles to get himself up and out of bed, weaving his way out of his room and down the hall, his other hand pressed over his mouth. He hears one of the bottles – he’s assuming the scotch – fall from his bed to the floor, but it sounds empty, and besides, he’s got more pressing problems than alcohol stains on his carpet.

“Sam? What’s happening? Are you okay?”

He manages to make it to the bathroom just in time.

He hasn’t puked because of alcohol since his sixteenth birthday, which Dean had decided to celebrate with him (and Jack, José, and Jim) in style. He still maintains that he’d almost gotten alcohol poisoning from that debacle, and he doesn’t feel any better now than he had back then. He pukes noisily, managing the get his phone out of the way but not much more than that. He feels vaguely bad for Gabriel, having to listen to him, but the burn in his throat and the niggling fact that he also has to piss takes up most of his cognitive process.

By the time he manages to raise his hand and weakly flush the toilet, his cheeks are red with more than just the effort of heaving. He stumbles to the sink, spits, and then picks up the phone again. “I,” he says, and Gabriel interrupts him.

“Well, _that_ was energetic.”

“Yeah.” Sam runs the sink, and doesn’t even bother to get a glass. He sticks his head under the faucet and drinks straight from the tap while Gabriel talks at him.

“Exactly how much did you drink last night? By the way, as much as I approve of alcohol and its many benefits, I don’t approve of waiting until I left to get blind drunk.”

“Sorry,” Sam mutters. He spits again, unable to quite get rid of the taste of bile in his mouth. “I just…wanted to stop thinking for a while.” Talking is painful. _Moving_ is painful. Sam gulps down another mouthful of water, to combat the dehydration, and then shuffles back down the hallway to his room.

“There are easier ways of doing that. If you’d told me…”

“You didn’t want to stay.”

“That’s not true.”

“No, it’s okay Gabriel, it really is.”

“Sam…”

“I never wanted to drag you into this. Dean is…”

“Your family, so I might as well get used to him throwing tantrums every now and then. I shouldn’t have left.”

Sam turns the faucet to _hot_ and then sticks his hands underneath it, scrubbing at his skin with a vicious efficiency that normally only Dean displays, and even then it’s only when he’s absolutely caked in engine grease and sweat. He scrubs so hard that his hands turn red, from the heat and from the irritation, and when he finally turns the water off his skin _hurts_. The phone, cradled precariously between Sam’s shoulder and his cheek, threatens to fall and land in the toilet as Sam reaches for a towel. He swears, although he’s not entirely sure what he says.

“You’ve been kissing me with that mouth?” Gabriel laughs, and Sam winces as he dries his hands. It hurts. His throat hurts, his head hurts, and now his hands hurt as well. So far this is shaping up to be a real peach of a morning.

“Mm,” Sam says, by way of response, and Gabriel sighs. Sam can almost feel it against his ear. Wishful thinking.

“Just ‘mm?’ You’re not very talkative this morning.”

“I just puked up like three liters of alcohol. Forgive me if I’m not feeling chatty.”

“What if I told you that I have a present for you?”

“Gabriel…”

“It’s a really nice present.”

“I’m not really in the mood.”

“What if I came over and did a strip tease?”

“I’d probably get motion sick and puke again.”

He can practically hear the pout in Gabriel’s voice. “Well, if you’re going to insist on being hungover, I guess all I can do is tell you to drink lots of water and eat some breakfast.”

The very thought of eating makes Sam’s stomach churn, but he swallows down the urge to retch and, forgetting that Gabriel can’t see him, nods. He stops when he realizes what he’s doing, rolling his eyes at himself. Even that small movement makes his head feel like it’s full of rattling nails.

“Yes, _Dean_.”

“I’ll have you know that I’m much more handsome than your brother, _and_ I’m well hung.”

“You might as well be the same person, the way you’re mother henning me.” Sam shuffles into the kitchen, turning on the coffeemaker and groping through the cupboards for a filter and some grounds. “I’ll keep that in mind, though.”

“The more on your mind, the better.”

“Stop leering,” Sam chastises, and Gabriel’s voice softens.

“I’ll be over later, okay? With the present.”

“Gabriel, tell me what you’re planning.”

“It’s a surprise present. It wouldn’t be a surprise if I told you.”

Sam heads for the freezer while the coffee is percolating, opening up the icebox and sticking his hands into the depths of it. The chill makes him sigh, loudly, gratefully. Gabriel huffs.

“You don’t make those noises when I kiss you.”

Sam pulls out an ice cube and presses it to his temple, willing the cold to banish his headache. The numb freeze of it distracts him from his own pain. “You don’t make my headaches go away. Ice does. Don’t you have a present you should be wrapping?”

“I think it would object if I wrapped it.”

Water drips down the side of Sam’s face, little rivulets running down his cheek and his neck, pooling in the dip of his collarbone before spilling over and sliding down his chest. He grabs another piece of ice when the first melts, too small for him to hold. “You’re not trying to stuff Castiel’s cat into a box, are you?”

“That’s an excellent idea, let me get back to you on that.”

“No cats,” Sam warns, “or other animals.” Gabriel laughs, makes a kissing sound against the receiver, and then hangs up. Sam stares at the phone for a long time, ice water wetting his hair and dripping down his skin, before setting it down on the counter and turning his attention to the coffeemaker.

He forces himself to drink a cup of coffee, so full of creamer and sugar that the sweetness almost hurts his teeth, but otherwise he doesn’t think he’ll be able to force the stuff down. Then, because he thinks that Gabriel might yell at him later if he doesn’t, he manages to eat half a bowl of cereal. He can’t bring himself to eat any more once the cereal has gotten soggy; the texture makes him feel like he wants to throw up again, and he dumps the remainder down the garbage disposal and feels slightly, silently guilty for wasting food. Dean would make fun of him.

Dean. He misses his brother. Misses him so bad that he feels it in his chest, a stone of grief, made jagged by anger so that when Sam moves to fast his throat closes up and he wants to cry from the pain of it. Dean would tell him to suck it up, but he would say it kindly.

Sam carries his second cup of coffee out to the living room and reassumes his place on the couch, facing the front door, coffee held between his knees. He practices what he’ll say when ( _if_ ) Dean comes back, starts out with “I’m sorry,” and then bows his head, hating the feel of the words in his mouth.

“I’m sorry,” he says again, but it’s still not enough, so he goes on. “I’m sorry I lied to you, but…but you lied too, so you shouldn’t be angry at me, you shouldn’t have left, you…” He stops again. He sounds so angry, so disappointed. Sam tries to gentle his voice. “I’m sorry that I lied to you. I didn’t want you to find out because I knew you would think that I didn’t know what I was doing. You’d think that Gabriel was using me or wasn’t good for me, and that’s why I lied. Gabriel makes me happy, isn’t that enough? That’s all I want. I want to be happy.”

It sounds like a patchwork quilt, cobbled together out of junk parts, scraps of explanations sewed together with excuses. He stops talking, trying to make sense of his own thoughts, trying to organize them in a way that sounds like speech rather than desperation.

He sets the cup of coffee down on the floor, tucking his feet at the end of the couch, digging his toes into the material. The apartment is cold, and Sam curls his arms around himself, resting his head against the arm of the couch and sighing.

“I miss you,” he says quietly. “I miss you and everything is too quiet when you’re not around. I know you still think of me like a kid sometimes, but I’m happy, Dean. I’m really happy.”

He closes his eyes, pressing his mouth against the couch to keep himself from talking more, breathing out through his mouth and feeling the heat against his lips.

He falls asleep like that, the coffee cup down on the floor and his feet tucked between the couch cushions, his mouth slightly open. Dreaming, uselessly, about an ideal world where Gabriel and Castiel do not work at the university, where they have no responsibilities but to each other, and where Dean can have all the pie he wants without having to worry about getting fat.

~

Sam wakes to the feeling of someone gently shaking him. He’s turned on his side, facing the back of the couch, and the hand on his shoulder is warm and familiar in size. He flops over onto his back, wincing as the light hits his eyes. His headache, intent on announcing its presence, pounds viciously against the inside of his skull.

Dean is staring down at him, frowning.

“You look like shit,” he says, and Sam reaches up and grabs his brother’s shoulders, pulls him down and hugs him, and doesn’t want to let go. Dean allows it for an unprecedented fifteen seconds, and then gently extricates himself from Sam’s arms. “Calm down, sasquatch, this isn’t the second coming.”

“I missed you,” Sam murmurs. “I thought…I was worried you wouldn’t come back.”

Dean scoffs, ruffling Sam’s hair and then taking a step back. He shoves his hands into his pockets, shrugging. “Of course I came back. You’re my brother.”

“This is super sweet and all, but can we skip to the part where Sam gives me a good-morning kiss?”

Sam glances over Dean’s shoulders at Gabriel, standing in the doorway, his brows furrowed. “Pretty sure you don’t want to kiss me before I brush my teeth.”

Dean grimaces, raising his hand. “Woah, just because I’m stomaching the thought of you two together doesn’t mean you have to push it.”

Sam laughs, even though the sound and the movement make his head ache. He pushes himself up from the couch, tottering for a moment on legs that have been tucked up in an odd position for too long. Gabriel immediately pushes past Dean, crowding against Sam’s side, letting him rest a hand on his shoulder. Dean watches them, seeming simultaneously uncomfortable and pleased. Sam nods towards the kitchen.

“I made coffee,” he says softly. “Gabriel, do you…want to stay?”

Gabriel helps steady him until Sam’s legs have regained some feeling, and even though they walk together into the kitche, Dean trailing behind them, he says, “Only if your brother thinks it’s okay.”

Sam glances back; Dean looks like he’s disgusted by every word that comes out of his own mouth, but he grudgingly smiles and says, “ _Sure_. Stay as long as you want.”

“Don’t strain yourself,” Gabriel mutters, and Sam laughs again.

“Both of you, stop. Dean, the cereal’s on the counter if you want it. I’ll heat up the coffee.”

Gabriel lets go of him, lingering near his shoulder as Sam turns the coffeemaker back on to heat what’s in the pot, pulling out the used filter and throwing it out, and then replacing it with fresh grounds. “Gabriel,” he says, “you’re hovering.”

“You like it when I hover.” Gabriel hooks his chin over Sam’s shoulder, humming softly. “See? I said you’d like your present.”

“So you and Dean are…?”

“We’re probably never going to be friends, but he’s not so bad, when he isn’t being a dick.”

“I heard that,” Dean calls, shuffling through the fridge. He emerges with the milk carton gripped in one hand. “I’m not a dick.”

“You can be kind of a dick,” Sam admits, and Dean scowls. Gabriel’s response is just to slide his arms around Sam’s waist, holding on. Sam turns, pressing a quick kiss to Gabriel’s forehead. “You’re not usually this cuddly. What’s up?”

“I might have lost you.” Gabriel swallows. “You’d never choose me over him, if he asked you to.”

“He’d never ask me to.” Dean makes a loudly disgusted noise when he sees them standing so close, but he doesn’t actually object as he pours himself a bowl of cereal. “Dean’s stubborn, but he’s not an idiot.”

“Jury’s still out on that.”

“I can _hear_ you two!” There’s stillness for what feels like a long time, the sound of Dean eating his cereal, and Gabriel’s quiet breathing. It’s as close to perfect as Sam thinks he’ll ever get.

“So,” Dean says. He stirs his spoon around his bowl. “Gabriel said you got drunk last night.”

Sam winces. Maybe not _quite_ perfect.


End file.
